North Pole, Lapland, Workshop Street, no. 1
002498
mosul@craciun.com
December 2022
My dear ones,
I haven’t yet heard what the weather is like over in your country; in recent years the landing hasn’t been all that smooth. Perhaps this year I’ll have a little more luck and the Winter Fairy will lay down some snow for me, so my back won’t ache anymore and the reindeer won’t scrape their hooves either.
I’m writing these lines from my desk for writing letters, beside the fireplace, while Mrs Claus looks at me over the top of her glasses as if waiting for me to send you her greetings too, so I’m sending you her greetings too. She also asks you most kindly to stop leaving cookies for me by the tree, since my cholesterol isn’t doing too well.
In any case, that’s not why I wrote to you; I wrote because there are only a few days left until Christmas, which is also my birthday, and I’m caught up in a fever of preparations… and someone else has a fever too, only not the preparing kind… You should know that 324 of my 325 elves have come down with a cold, and now all of Lapland is one big sneeze.
I assure you that both I and Mrs Claus and the one elf who is still healthy are doing our very best to carry out all your wish lists.
Did I ever tell you how I came to be Santa Claus? Well, Crăciun has called to me ever since I can remember, for that was my father’s name, and his father’s, and his father’s father’s; only a few hundred years ago, I don’t know exactly how many, since Mrs Claus keeps the calendars and the exact dates, a bit of magic was about to happen to me, of all people. I was a simple man, a little thinner than I am now and perhaps a touch sadder. One evening, around dusk, on the 25th of December, a frozen cloud carried in on a wind so cold it froze your very heart and teeth came to a stop on my porch. I got a bit cross, since I’d only just tidied it, and then I grew curious and took the shovel in my right hand, and holding it before me like a shield, I crept closer little by little. My greatest surprise was when I saw that on the cloud sat an elf like any other elf, and this elf looked at me with moist, sad eyes and said to me:
"I know it’s your birthday today, but I’ve come because a child is in great need of you."
"What?" I asked, taken aback, for I had no children with Mrs Claus, yet I loved them dearly.
"Here’s the thing," the elf went on, "he is all alone in the world, and today he held a sprig of fir in his right hand, brought his left hand to his heart, and made his wish."
"What wish?"
"He wished to be given a little red sack to put his school things in."
Now, my dears, I had a bit of a knack for sewing, for by trade I was a tailor and a carpenter, and bringing happiness to children’s faces had always been a joy to me, so I hurried, as fast as my old age back then would let me, to my sewing kit, blew the dust off it hard, sneezed several times in a row; the elf threaded the needle for me, since even then I couldn’t see all that well.
Well, as I sat there sewing away, the way I sewed, out came a sack that was too big, and the elf told me it would be impossible for the child to carry it on his back, so I set about making a smaller one.
"You’ll keep the big one for yourself," the elf told me, looking at me with rather mischievous eyes…
"Well," I tried to say.
"Take the little one to the boy now!"
No sooner said than done, for there’s no joking around with these elves. Into the sack I also tucked the little wooden horse crafted by my own grandfather when I was a little child myself, since I no longer played with it and I knew for certain the child would be delighted to receive it.
And so I set off on my way through the snowdrifts!
When I reached the front of the little house, the door was locked and the windows were so small that not even your eyes would fit through, let alone your whole head, so I had no choice but to go in through the chimney. When I came in, the child was fast asleep in his little bed of oak wood, clutching in his little hands a white handkerchief embroidered at the edges with tiny red flowers. Without waking him, I set the little sack beside the sprig of fir adorned with white and green thread, tucked him in a little, and left.
Outside the house, I tripped over the elf and he over me, and we both went sprawling on the ground.
"All done, Santa?" he asked me.
"All done," I said, shaking off my coat, which had fresh snow stuck to it.
"And now?"
"Now I’m going back to Mrs Claus, since she’s put the polenta on."
"No," he cried out firmly, "there are other children waiting for you."
"For me?"
"Yes, because you are the only one who has received the magic of Christmas! Go on, look in the big sack you sewed with your own hand."
That’s when I saw that the sack no longer had a bottom, that’s how brimful it was with toys and sweets and whatever else was in it, I don’t even remember anymore.
Well, dear ones, helped a little by elfish power, a little by the Winter Fairy who cleared the snowdrifts from my path so I could go on, and a little more by my old friend Enică, whom you know as Ene, I managed that night to empty the sack and carry all the gifts to all the children in the land.
What I want you to know is that the magic appeared all at once, from where I least expected it, whether it was my enchanted thread, whether it was the boy’s sprig of fir, or simply the burning wish he had made; what is certain is that you, children, are the only ones who can keep the magic burning.
I’ll reach every one of you this year too, and to those who haven’t been good, for I know exactly which of you that is and how you are, let me tell you there’s still time.
Be good, be wise, set your mind to learning, for it will help you greatly in life, and take care to make good choices!
Now I’m off to potter about the workshop.
With friendship,
Santa Claus.
P.S.: Mrs Claus insists I ask you to stop offering me cookies, she knows I have a sweet tooth and can’t resist.